Compiler & Simulator / Synthesizer

[Christopher J. Holland]

Hi,

I played with VHDL some time ago.
I have Max Plus II ver 9.1 and a couple of Altera Chips.
I got the Key and software from the company I used to work for.
I also have a couple of Xilinx Chips and Foundation, but never messed with
it.

I found I could compile with Altera, but couldn't figure out what was
going on with the timing because I didn't have a simulator/synthesizer.

I'd like to develop something a bit robust, but not too robust.
That said, what are the Compiler / Simulator / Synthesizer that are not
too expensive, but I can develope something nice, without having to
change compilers in a year or so?

The Xilinx Foundation looked nice, but I never did learn it.
So I am getting back into it and just wanted to know what "most" people
are using to compile / simulate / synthesize their code.


Thanks,
--
Christopher J. Holland [!MVP]
http://www.mvps.org/vcfaq/
http://www.codeguru.com
http://www.codeproject.com
http://www.naughter.com/
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/howto/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/
www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm

 

[Mike Treseler]

So I am getting back into it and just wanted to know what "most" people
are using to compile / simulate / synthesize their code.

I expect that most use the free tools from
brand X and A on small fpgas and never notice
any tool limitations.

To use large fpgas, the vendor tools cost more
than zero, but are still a bargain for the
place+route and static timing functions alone.

For large designs, it becomes evident that you need
to simulate source code, not netlists, so a
fully licensed vhdl simulator is the primary
requirement.

Multi-vendor synthesis is nice to benchmark
how your pretested code fits into different devices
and to view the auto-generated netlist
schematic for each run. You might be able to get
by without it.

The vendor synthesis tools are ok and
getting better, but it is a more
blind and fussy go/no-go process.

-- Mike Treseler